Inevitable
by BiblioMatsuri
Summary: Why did I let her talk me into writing a dream journal, of all things? At least now Danny will never find out about the noodle incident. Might as well get it over with. Can be read as part of the SR Verse or as a standalone.


Disclaimer: I don't own DP.

BGM: "Integral Birth" by Cynic.

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Inevitable

It always starts the same way. I'm walking through a cookie-cutter city. All the buildings are white with dark glass windows, all the sidewalks continuing on with no driveways. The buildings are all insanely tall, and even when I look up all I see are more stories. Then I look back down because it feels too much like being in a cage.

After some time of this, a few minutes or maybe a few days, I reach another part of the city. I go by the school, the Nasty Burger and my favorite little computer repair shop (mostly because the cafe next door has some really hot waitresses). I try very hard not to notice that place, an expanse of windowless white and chemicals and red floors. Don't think about it, don't think about it. Happy place, happy place, happy place! Man, I hate this nightmare. That's not the worst part though.

After this, I get to the houses. They're all identical, two-story brownstones like the ones in Danny's neighborhood. Most of them are dark and quiet, until I see Fenton Works. Loud clanging noises begin from the basement, and my heartbeat starts pounding. I walk up to the door, and somehow Sam is there ringing the doorbell.

This is all pretty normal, so far. Here's where it starts diverging. A few times, Danny's parents open the door and point guns at us. I look down and I have green skin and I'm glowing, just like when Desiree gave me ghost powers. Otherwise, Sam is purple (duh), and she her hair is long and floaty like in an anime. Then the Fentons start shooting, I see green light and wake up in a cold sweat. That's it. Just your classic creepy-empty-city, turn-into-a-monster type nightmare. Nothing to worry about. That was the good ending.

Sometimes Jazz opens the door wearing – okay, that part is irrelevant to the dream as a whole. I swear. Stop looking at me like that! I'm a teenage boy, I can't help it. Anyway, Jazz takes us into the living room, and Sam goes up to look for Danny, but he's nowhere to be found. She's talking, probably about how her parents' latest experiment failed, but I'm too busy staring to give a damn. Then I hear screaming and see green light, and realize that my best friend just died alone. Then Sam, Jazz and I are down there, and so is Danny. Only, one Danny is a bloody corpse, and the other one isn't Danny. His eyes are blood red, and he's got this creepy snake tongue, and fangs and blue skin like Plasmius. He starts talking, and his voice is all raspy and deep and scary. "You killed me, you fool. You let me die alone!" Then he jumps, I see red light (no, not green, and that makes it that much worse) and I wake up screaming. Thank goodness I was sleeping at my desk that time. My parents thought it was because I stayed up late playing scary video games. I got cut off for a week, but it's better than letting them find out I'd just had a my-best-friend-turned-into-a-monster-and-killed-me nightmare.

The worst one is where Danny lets us in. Most of the dream goes just like that day did. His parents are off moping somewhere, Jazz is being creepily cheerful, and Sam is being bossy. Danny doesn't talk, he just nods and smiles and goes along with whatever they say. Sam pushes him, and then we're down in the basement. We argue about whether or not Danny should check out the portal, only I'm hearing someone else say my lines, with my voice, like I'm overshadowed by myself. Danny puts on a white jumpsuit, Sam peels off that stupid Fenton face his dad puts on everything and puts a black flaming "D" on. He walks in, and then I can move, but I can't talk. I try to follow, but Sam calls me back and asks if I'm stupid, why I'm going in when I know nothing about Fenton tech. Like Danny knew what he was getting into! The portal was meant to tear a hole in reality. When something like that goes wrong, it always happens with a bang and not a whimper. I should have known, I should have known. This time, I did know, but no matter what I do, I can't stop it.

I hear screaming. I see green light, brighter and brighter until it turns white, every color in one, impossible heat warping metal. Danny falls out of the Portal, and he's a ghost. He doesn't say anything to me. He doesn't need to.

Then? There is no "then." That's when I wake up. I don't scream and I'm not even sweating, just too awake to bother trying to sleep. Back to reality, where my best friend is a science experiment gone wrong. The walking dead, only he has a pulse. He can still drown, he gets sunburn, he gets hurt when Dash shoves him in a locker. And two hours later, whatever injury he had is just gone. Not healed, because his body doesn't reinforce damaged areas anymore. It just kinda melts a little, and reforms good as new. Mind over matter; mad science at its best.

I do have nightmares about permanent loss of meat, about white places with green walls and red tables that _I refuse to think about_. I don't need nightmares, though. Reality is way nastier than anything my thankfully restrained subconscious can come up with. Now, when I start coming up with nightmares haven't happened yet, that's when you should worry. That's why I'm telling you this. Danny is the cause of my nightmares, Sam doesn't have the patience to just listen, and no one else knows about you-know-what.

You don't complain about how little sense the dreams make. You don't go on about how it's not my fault, not when you know it doesn't help. You just let me finish, because you know how it is to be a powerless observer. You know how it is to watch someone you've known for years become someone, something else entirely. You don't ask how I know so much about failed experiments. You know what it's like to stay up till 3 AM so you won't have to lie in bed worrying about how badly things could have gone wrong during the last ghost fight if he'd been a hair slower, if they'd been just a little more powerful or less stupid. You figured me out a long time ago, so I don't have to worry about giving it away.

Seriously, thanks Jazz. You have no idea how much this means to me.

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A/N: This story was born of a song stuck in my head and a desire to be at least somewhat original. Tucker was there on the day of the accident, so why doesn't anyone ever write his reaction?

Something of a tie-in to Antifreeze. All you really need to know for backstory is that it takes place after "Memory Blank", and that Jazz convinced Tucker to start keeping a dream journal. Odds are good she had blackmail material. It was for his own good, of course. This particular entry is under every security protocol he could come up with.

R&R, please.

EDIT: Added some italics, tried to reword a few things. The ending still feels rather weak and pointlessly angsty. Not my best effort.


End file.
